


this is how a fire starts

by precious_red



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen, M/M, TLJ rewrite, i might tackle rey's later, just finn poe & rose's story though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 16:50:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13081113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/precious_red/pseuds/precious_red
Summary: Maybe living for a cause matters more than dying for one. Maybe loving a cause heals more than leaving it.(or, let’s rewrite Rose, Finn, and Poe’s plot from TLJ)





	this is how a fire starts

**Author's Note:**

> Wow was that a confusing movie or what? Anyways left the theater feeling very conflicted, but also itching to write something that did these characters justice. Hope you enjoy! Comments are very much appreciated <3

_Hays Minor. Outer Rim. Otomak System._

_Major Exports: Crystalline ore_

_Other Industries of Note: Weapons testing, Recruitment_

_Hays Minor is a barren rock planet with deep reserves of crystalline ore, a material most commonly used in the outer windows of First Order ships. Large mining operations have lead to a degradation in the planet’s atmospheric quality, with dangerously high levels of particulate matter present in almost every region of the world. Planet inhabitants exhibit high rates of pulmonary illness including but not limited to black lung disease, allergies, asthma, dust fever. Furthermore, a weakened pulmonary system leaves inhabitants vulnerable to airborne flus and viruses._

_In addition to mining operations, the First Order also runs weapons tests on the planet, focusing on blaster refinement. There are three major weapons testing facilities._

_The First Order uses Hays Minor for recruitment. Recruitment has declined in recent years, due to increasing infant mortality rates. It has been theorized that environmental factors are responsible, but no formal studies have been conducted._

* * *

Somewhere in the galaxy, there is a child kneeling over a steel bowl in a stone pit, fumbling with a black stone. They call their mother over, after a few minutes of nothing happening.

* * *

Rose can’t remember the first time she hears of the Resistance, but she can remember the first time the Resistance becomes real. 

“Rose!” Paige whisper-shouts when she gets back home, well past 1260 GST, “Come look at this!” 

So Rose rolls over in her cot to blink blearily at her sister. “What is it?” she mumbles. 

“Move over!” Paige whispers, jumping into bed beside Rose, shoving her towards the wall. 

“Hey, Paige! You’re getting our cot dirty!” 

“Nevermind that! Look what I found!” 

Rose blinks, eyes crossing at the dirty piece of paper dangling in front of her face. 

“What?” she says, taking it and trying to make out what it says in the dim light from the slats in the wall. 

Beneath the wrinkled and the mud, she can barely make out a person’s face— strong jaw and tousled hair— and below it, in large black block letters: RESIST. 

Rose’s eyes go wide. “Where did you find this?” she hisses. 

Paige is grinning, her eyes glowing in the yellowed light of the housing complex. “I found it on the ground on the way home, barely poking out under a pile of junk. Can you believe it? It must be a sign.”

“Did anyone see you?” Rose asks, not really paying attention to what Paige is saying. She glances nervously at the cloth covering the entrance to their room. 

“Don’t worry, I’m not stupid. I pretended to drop my pack so I’d have a reason to pick it up.” 

“Still, what if it’s a plant?” There are rumors that the First Order purposefully distributes Rebellion propaganda to weed out possible traitors to their cause. 

“It’s not! Look!” Paige says, and turns the paper over. 

On the back, there’s a ton of text, all of it illegible at this point. But in the bottom left hand corner, there’s an insignia. 

Rose recognizes it. Everyone does. The Alliance Starbird. Hope. 

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Rose says, exasperated at her sister’s recklessness. But her heart isn’t in it. Of course it means something. Here in the run-down mining encampments of Hays Minor, it means everything.

They decide to leave two years later, when the First Order officers that come down to pick up newborns for the army start whispering about a stormtrooper, FN-2187, who defected from the Order, rescued rebel scum pilot Poe Dameron, and helped the Resistance destroy Starkiller Base. 

* * *

The mother kneels beside her child, takes their hands in her own. 

“Like this,” she says, guiding her child’s hands through a sharp striking motion. 

* * *

Poe is born in the Resistance. That’s not an exaggeration— Shara Bey literally gave birth on a Rebel Alliance medical frigate en-route to the new base being established on Hoth. 

He grows up learning to fly in the lap of an Alliance legend, lives his life dreaming of joining the New Republic fleet, and as soon as he meets Leia Organa, jets off with her to join the Resistance instead. 

He, quite literally, owes his life to this cause. That’s why he doesn’t hesitate to swap channels— General Organa still shouting at him to turn back— and continue the attack on the First Order Dreadnaught. 

“Cobalt Hammer,” he shouts into a different channel instead of responding to the General, “You’re the last bomber left. Drop your payload, now!” 

No response, except for static.

“Fuck,” Poe whispers, scanning the field for options. 

One bomber operational, not actively moving but still slowly drifting towards the target. If Poe can swing up and around, he might be able to ram the ship into the Dreadnaught. 

He tells BB-8 this— the droid responds with a series of expletives. 

“It’s our only option buddy,” Poe pleads. 

More cursing, and with it, a plea to wait. 

“Fuck,” Poe repeats, staring at the still drifting bomber. “30 seconds, that’s all I’m giving it. The longer we wait the more likely it is that—”

He cuts himself off, as he sees motion from the bottom of the bomber. 

“They did it!” 

“Great job Cobalt Hammer!”

“Eat shit Imperial scum!” 

The Dreadnaught lights up— flames bursting higher and higher from the ship’s core, rising up to meet the bomber above. The bomber which is….still not moving. 

“Shit! That ship’s not operational,” Poe hisses, and only has time to glance at life-sign readings— one person, still breathing— before the bomber goes up in flames too. 

Fuck.

“Great job team, let’s head out,” Poe says into the comm. He’s watching the black space where that life-sign reading used to be, nausea growing in his gut. If anyone can tell that their commander’s cheer is missing over the crackle of the comms, they don’t mention it. 

Leia, on the other hand, notices almost immediately. 

“Commander!” Leia says, marching into the hangar as what’s left of the fleet returns.

“General,” Poe says, standing at attention. 

She stares at him for a moment— one of her stares that Poe can’t read, which never ends well for him— then snaps, “With me.” 

He follows her up to the hallway outside of the bridge, where she stops and turns around to face him.

“You disobeyed a direct order.”

Poe shifts uncomfortably, but keeps her gaze. “Yes ma’am.” 

“Half of your fleet is dead.” 

Poe still keeps her gaze. He always meets Leia’s eyes when she’s talking to him, anything less would be disrespectful. It’s hard though— it’s really really hard. 

“Yeah,” he says, voice coming out hoarse. There’s stinging in his eyes, but he ignores it. The General has seen him in worse condition before. 

Leia’s gaze softens. “Poe,” she says, reaching out to place a hand on his shoulder. 

Poe swallows, and it’s a heavy pained thing. 

“It was the right thing to do. The whole fleet would have been wiped out if that Dreadnaught were still functional.”

“You don’t know that,” Leia says, but not unkindly. 

“Yes, I do. Come on General, we didn’t have a chance of getting shelter at Arkanis with a Dreadnaught floating above the planet while we made our case.”

“You might be right about that,” Leia says, “But that doesn’t change that you ignored a direct order. There a lot of pilots dead Poe— I can’t ignore that.” 

“You think I don’t know that?” Poe asks. He would sound more insubordinate if his voice weren’t trembling so much. “But with all due respect General, it was the right call.”

“Wasn’t your call to make,” Leia says, with a slight quirk to her lips. She takes a deep breath, Poe feels it through the hand she still has on his shoulder. “I’m demoting you.”

“What?” Poe says.

“From Commander to Captain.”

“What?” Poe repeats.

“You’ll stay in command of Black Squadron as Black Leader, but I’m placing the Red and Blue Squadrons in command of Pava and Snap.”

“Wait, what does it matter if it wasn’t my call to make if it was the right thing to do? You can’t just—”

“—I can, and I will.” And there it is, the voice of the General— this conversation is over.

“I’m not losing anyone else out there on lost causes. Not if I can help it,” Leia adds, softly. And her eyes are clear, they are. But there’s a grief there, a tiredness, that runs so deep, and Poe wonders why he hasn’t noticed it before.

Poe drops his gaze. 

Leia huffs out a small laugh and squeezes his shoulder. “Now come on. Lucky for you, Pava and Snap are not aboard Raddus at this moment, so you’re still stuck with me for negotiations.”

“What?” Poe repeats, again. It comes out closer to a groan. 

Leia pushes him lightly. “Quit your whining flyboy,” she laughs, and turns to head into high command.

Poe scowls, and follows.

* * *

The child frowns when their mother takes her hands away and stands up to leave. 

* * *

Finn is born— twice, arguably— because of the Resistance. 

The first time, on some nameless planet, in some unknown medical facility where a Recruitment Patrol plucks him from the arms of a mother he’ll never know. The Empire had accelerated Stormtrooper recruitment and training in the face of growing Rebel Alliance activity. Finn finishes preliminary programming around the same time the Empire loses the Battle of Jakku— just in time to be snatched up by the First Order.

He’ll visit Jakku itself 12 years later on his first field assignment to be born a second time: in a tie fighter careening wildly towards the surface of the planet, through the words of a grinning Resistance pilot. 

But for all he owes the Resistance, Finn finds that he isn’t particularly excited to be aboard a Resistance ship. It probably has something to do with all the ship debris floating outside the medbay window, or the grime and weariness all over Poe Dameron’s face. 

“We came over as soon as we heard,” General Organa says. She’s sitting beside his bed, hands folded in her lap. 

Thankfully, she had shown up after Finn changed out of the weird plastic medsuit he had been wearing (another reason to avoid the Resistance, their medical gear is less advanced than what the First Order uses on _Stormtroopers_ ). He’d hate to have this conversation while half-naked— the disorientation and lingering Kylo Ren induced panic are making this weird enough.

“You must have questions?”

Well, yeah. Obviously. The last thing Finn remembers is getting his ass handed to him by an enraged Kylo Ren. Now he’s sitting in a Resistance medbay, sore and unable to move very much, but generally feeling okay— of course he has questions. 

But there’s really only one question that matters: “Rey?” 

The General smiles. “She’s safe—”

Finn breathes an audible sigh of relief.

“— and doing okay.” The General recounts the full story: Rey fighting Kylo Ren off and actually winning, unlike Finn; Rey using the Force; Rey leaving to find Luke Skywalker.

Finn tries to pretend that doesn’t hurt, but it does. A little. He’s relieved, more relieved than he can say. He’s extraordinarily proud, though not particularly surprised. Finn’s heard enough stories of Kylo Ren’s temper tantrums. In hindsight, it’s obvious that Rey— beautiful and bright and smart— would wipe the floor with Kylo Ren. He’s relieved and proud and happy for her, he really is. But, there’s loneliness and a little bit of pain too.

The General must see something in his face, because she pulls a glowing bracelet-looking thing from her pocket and hands it to Finn.

“What is it?” Finn asks, turning it over in his hands. 

“A tracker. Rey has the other one. As long as you’ve got this, you’ll know where she is.”

Finn’s eyes go wide. “Are… are you sure?” Finn asks, even as his heart speeds up in excitement, and a kind of relief. A connection— any connection— means something. 

“I’m sure,” she says, “It’s…. hard. Not knowing.” She looks down at her hands, her smile growing faint. 

Oh. 

It’s like a physical shock, remembering Han. “Oh,” Finn chokes, hand clenching around the tracker. His other hand moves up to cover his mouth.

“Oh,” Finn repeats. He can feel his heart-rate speeding up, can feel his chest growing tight, can feel his breaths getting faster and shorter and. Oh. Han’s dead. Gone and not coming back. It feels like Finn is back on Starkiller Base— red light and cold cold air and desperation like Finn is the one falling, not Han. And then it feels like Finn is back on Jakku. Like the thick dusty air and sweat that’s not filtering out of his helmet properly and ozone from blaster fire and the smell of blood from a handprint smeared across—

“Hey.”

Finn gasps.

“Hey, buddy,” Poe says, moving to kneel beside Finn’s bed. 

“Hey,” he repeats, softly. “Can I ask you to look at me?” 

Finn’s gaze snaps up on instinct, to meet Poe’s calm dark eyes. 

“Do you want to get out of here?” Poe asks, and Finn shakes his head: no. Finn doesn’t think he could move right now, doesn’t want to try it. 

“Can I put my hand here?” Poe asks next, his hand hovering above Finn’s blanketed knee. 

Finn nods mutely. He’s trying— and failing— to swallow around the growing lump in this throat.

“Great, thanks,” Poe says, with an easy smile. He gently rests his hand on Finn’s knee, a soft but present pressure. 

“Can you feel my breathing?” Poe asks. And yeah, Finn can. Poe is close enough that Finn can see the rise and fall of his chest, 

“Alright, I’m gonna ask you to breathe with me.”

So he does. Finn’s not sure for how long, but eventually, his breaths grow more even, his heart rate steadies out. 

“I’m sorry,” Finn says, finally able to swallow then speak. 

“Hey, no problem pal,” Poe responds easily. “It’s more common than you’d think.” He shifts backwards slightly, but stays kneeling by the bed. 

“I’m the one who should be sorry,” the General adds. “I didn’t think about how recent everything is for you.”

“No it’s,” Finn swallows, “Fine. Really, I’m fine it’s just… a lot.” 

And it is, a lot. It’s been four months for everyone else, but for Finn, this all happened yesterday. His last memory before it all dissolves is searing pain across his back and his knees growing damp in the cold snow. His last thought is Rey— how he failed to keep her safe from the First Order, how Kylo might kill her just like he killed Han. 

“Shit,” Finn whispers, scrubbing a hand over his face. “So what happens next?”

* * *

“Like this,” the child whispers, striking the two black rocks together, just like how their mother showed them.

There’s a small flash of light— it glints off the side of the steel bowl. 

From the doorway, the mother smiles.

This is how a fire starts.


End file.
